Myself and two teammates were asked to expand on our knowledge of face capture from the simple little rigs built for the local science museum. Seen in this video is our 12 DSLR, fully automatic face scan rig. It syncs and triggers all cameras and flashes with an Arduino based logic unit. Everything is self contained in two checkable Pelican cases for airline travel at a moments notice.

I run at night, while the wee babies are dreaming of a more fit daddy, and the woodland creatures are doing their best to scare me from the roadside (and they do).

I have my iPhone with me for tunes, but I felt that I didn’t look stupid enough, so I came up with a chest-mounted ground projection rig. It both illuminates the path (and armadillos) directly in front of me and displays information, such as mileage, time, maps, etc.

A custom app I wrote constantly samples the gyro and accelerometer and counter-adjusts (position and rotation) the projected image. This results in less sway and bounce in the projected image on the ground while running. I intend to integrate some sort of pattern recognition into the motion detection so that I can more accurately predict and adjust the image based on the average motion over time.

I like it. It could be more comfortable to wear, but that’s for version 0.2.

I recently had the need to power 12 camera flashes and didn’t want to burn through batteries. Since there was no DC power input jack, and I didn’t want to void any warranties, I designed and printed up some powered battery compartment “slugs”.

The final version has a DC power jack integrated into the print for quicker connections.

I had a thought recently… “What if light bulbs could provide us with information, and not just light?” And so, I sketched up the “InfoLight”.

The idea is basically a pico projector in a bulb form factor. I simplify it to an LED, an LCD and a lens here, but really, that’s a pico projector. The bulb would be connected to Wifi or smart phone via Bluetooth LE 4.0 and display simple information and data on demand or ambiently all the time.

I want one. So I made a very crude version for weather, shown in the above video. I have little need for weather info, since I have a smart phone and windows in my house, but the idea still intrigues me.

Here are the guts. An Arduino, a Bluetooth LE module, an LED and a weather icon mask cut from cardboard. An iPhone app rotates the mask to project weather based on the forecast.

Script I wrote with GUI that lets users draw over 3D models in Maya’s viewport for feedback and critique. Scene with notes can be opened by artists and feedback can be viewed or saved out to jpgs. Useful for fast turnaround on models, textures, animation, etc.

This was a fun side project at work for Halloween last year. I shot co-workers doing zombie things behind a large frosted glass window, then composited it all together with effects and re-projected it onto a conference room frosted door. The effect was great, and some people had trouble telling if it was real actors behind the door or if it was faked. Fun! Kind of stuff I love doing.

Here’s an unedited shot of the original footage:

This was a small webcam-based face scanning rig built for an event called Otronicon. It consists of 8 Microsoft Lifecams, some LED lighting and an iPod for self alignment. A PC then controls the capture and reconstruction of 3D faces.

For a local science museum event, a colleague and I got the chance to build 3 mini-games based on augmented reality technology, in order to showcase one possible direction for the future of gaming. They were quick, simple prototypes, but the line to play them was rarely empty. Success!

When is the last time that an electronic device impaled you?
For me, it had been far too long.

Enter… The Arduino King Cobra! (TM, R, Copyright, Patent Pending… not really).
I had some new parts and wanted to build something during my lunch hour recently. This is what I came up with.
I call these sessions “One Hour Hackathons”. Only, it’s just me, and I rarely time them, and yes, they are lonely.